Decided to give CrashPlan a try, and I don’t think a 1.5 year backup is going to work for me

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1.5 Years! I don’t think so! Though to be fair I do have 5.3 TB of data, and the 1.1 TB music drive is on a NAS connected via 10/1000 ethernet, but still! And the number does change. I see it go down to 6 months sometimes, but I also find that for a good portion of every day it seems to be just scanning my drives, and not uploading. And I am on Fios with 35 Mb up and down so I have a fairly fast connection.

I am thankful for the free 30 day trial so I could learn this, very cool, otherwise I would have purchased and realized I would paying for likely 2 years before I had a full backup! Now way!

Now I went with CrashPlan after reading all about it, and seeing reviews and it does look like an excellent cloud based backup solution. And it’s Java based app is easy to use and free and can be used for local backups as well.

And they have many plans, from 32.99 for 10GB, 59.99 for unlimited on one computer and $149.99 a year for unlimited on 5 computers. Seems reasonable, though you can only download a certain amount and must pay and send a hard drive for more, (EDIT: I was wrong, they don’t charge to download, which is awesome, thanks to the comment) but it does keep your data secure away from your home.

I wanted a cloud backup as I had a drive go down recently and it really screwed me, but I don’t think this is the solution. I am still thinking a large local storage would be better for me, though I certainly can’t afford it right now.

EDIT: And yes I do have a local backup, though not of everything, I just don’t currently have the hard drive space. I have a 3TB backup, and everything on MUSIC is RAID 1, so I have a copy of what is on there, but if things get messed up, they will be messed up in both places.

ADDITIONAL: Been keeping Crashplan running, hoping it will jump forward and have downloaded a lot more by the time the time the demo is over so will then buy it and use it. Lots of the time it seems to spend re-scanning all my drives, and with the amount I have, that takes a lot of time, but yesterday I came home to this:

HA! 10.5 Years huh? And when I tried to snap the picture it was 11.5 years, but I didn’t snap fast enough! Now I know that isn’t the actual time, but that is a long time to say it needs to back up!

I need a big raid as storage, but with redundancy, though I do like the idea of an offsite solution with great encryption, which Crash Plan is. It just isn’t for someone with the storage needs that I have.

I CAN JOG! Surgery Update at about 10 Months

I wen to a new General Practitioner and he wants me to lose weight faster, and do my morning 2.1 mile walk in 30 instead of 45 minutes. To that end, yesterday I jogged part of it. 1/4 of a mile, then 2 1/8’s of a mile, and I did the same today. And it really wasn’t a problem. Didn’t even get that out of breath, though I did sweat allot! Still I could NEVER JOG! Not at all, ever! This is a huge difference! Absolutely huge! Wow, I can jog! Now I need some better sneakers and I bet I can jog a whole lot more! Wow!

He also wants me to exercise for another 15 minutes when I get home. Leg exercises, so I am doing kettle bell, and core, so situps and some hand weights, like I used to do. Not too much with my chest as it is still sore, but as much as I can.

As for my weight, I am still losing some weight, and am still on the 8 hour diet, though things are moving very slowly, but I am trending down.
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Here is my last week from Fitbit. Tend to go up a bit on the weekend, but still trending down. Even with some days getting fast food as I get off work so late (hate still driving at 7:30 PM).

Still I am sticking with the 8 hour diet (though the doctor said to eat breakfast, but I have never liked breakfast, it makes me hungry all day!).

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Here is my scar. Still not white, and if anything it has gotten bigger, or at least wider. Still not hurting so much, though I am still using a pillow under a seatbelt as it feels better in the car.

Brain fog is better, though my creativity really isn’t better, but getting home by 8 and going to bed at 10, and having super busy weekends may not be helping on that end much either.

Overall I am doing pretty great, and I CAN JOG! WOW!

Feedly on how to make Feedly more Google Reader like

I woke up this morning to an e-mail from Feedly on how to make Feedly more Google Reader like. So of course I decided to give it another chance.

And I have to say with the changes, it is a pretty good Reader replacement. Fast and works well. And for now it still syncs with Reeder (until they replace with their own backend when reader goes down). My only complaint so far is that the feed organization is pretty bad. I can’t seem to drag feeds where they were very easily.

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That and the iOS app is set up as the graphical view and you can’t seem to change that. Until Google Reader goes away I will be using REEDER to sync with Google Reader, and trying Feedly on the desktop for now.

Creative Cow on VFX Industry Crossroads

Creative Cow has a great article by Debra Kaufman on the crossroads of a Visual Effects Industry in Crisis. Well worth checking out. And a scary look inside the industry.

The whole flat bidding thing is the scariest thing, as jobs always get bigger and have more changes and if you don’t get overages eventually the expenses will kill a company and that is why so many are moving overseas where the labor is cheaper.

And it is not like Rythym and Hues is the first, this will continue, as it may prove too expensive to run an FX company in the current model. Maybe the studios just need to make their own companies on a per movie basis, though I don’t see that saving money either, as they will have to pay their own people!